Enlightenment Through Understanding

Alt Right, Part.. Whatever

Analyzing a subset of the alt-right who call themselves “neoreactionaries,” Vox’s Dylan Matthews explains this important distinction, “Most modern libertarians are individualists, motivated by a desire to prevent the masses from oppressing the individual…
“Neoreactionaries are not individualists… neoreaction places huge value on group membership and group loyalty,” Matthews says.
“They are tribalists, and for the most part—let’s not mince words—they are racists.”

In regard to the Daily Beast article, there seems to be some confusion among the punditry about larpy-right vs. the rationalist alt-right, lumping the two together. The latter is less aligned to tribal-like loyalties, preferring intellectual thought and debate above slavish devotion to ideology. ‘Group loyalty’, ‘litmus tests’, and ‘membership’ has never struck me as a defining characteristic of NRx. Pre-2014 NRx seemed more libertarian, more theoretical, more rationalist, and more individualistic, versus the post-2014 attempts to try to codify it into political movement. The people who show up for Trump or Milo rallies are not representative of NRx as a whole, nor the other way around. Maybe some are, but not all. NRx has and should always be a little opaque, to keep it from becoming too activist, too political, too low-information. Many followers of NRx, in rejecting the democratic process, don’t seem to fit the personality mold (being a ‘team player’ or gregarious) of those who readily join political rallies and causes, as Altavisionary noted.

It’s kinda amazing how, despite being gay, Milo has been so effective at converting young people to the ‘alt right’, which is evidence the ‘alt right’ values ideas more so than identity politics or the person behind the ideas. This indifference or aversion to moral rigidity borrows from libertarianism.

Unfortunately, all movements come in waves, and there is always the possibility the ‘alt right’ wave will crest, if it hasn’t already, similar to the 2009-2012 Tea Party surge and other movements. As an anecdotal example, between 2014-2015, on popular investing website, a couple dozen people discussed and wrote articles pertaining to a special ETF strategy, forming a small ‘club’, and then in early 2016, possibly due to unfavorable market conditions or other factors, the discussion suddenly stopped. Things come and go. The question is, how to keep the momentum going.